tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post1018923121594581671..comments2015-07-28T19:30:42.550-06:00Comments on Atheist Ethicist: A Purpose to Life: Whose Purpose Is It?Alonzo Fyfehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-75426372343248663452009-08-05T17:10:25.792-06:002009-08-05T17:10:25.792-06:00There is much food for thought and sound logic in ...There is much food for thought and sound logic in your post. I particularly keyed in to your remarks about hatred of homosexuals. Indeed there is no divine purpose here, or any rational purpose whatsoever. It is a sad fact that a large segment of society, particularly the religious right and those influenced by them, still regards gay men and women as second-class citizens - or worse. That is one of the salient points of my recently released biographical novel, Broken Saint. It is based on my forty-year friendship with a gay man, and chronicles his internal and external struggles as he battles for acceptance (of himself and by others, including fellow Mormons). More information on the book is available at www.eloquentbooks.com/BrokenSaint.html.<br /><br />Mark Zamen, authorsteinbeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10376133518831575923noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-68989063336767206772009-07-28T11:49:07.728-06:002009-07-28T11:49:07.728-06:00Hello Doug. Re-reading your question today, I thi...Hello Doug. Re-reading your question today, I think I mis-interpreted what you meant to say.<br /><br />Let me try again.<br /><br />You said that a good desire, and a good desire with a rare exception, are nearly equally good. So a person could have the desire-with-exception and still be a good person, and so by the metric of &quot;right acts are those that an agent with good desires would do&quot; that exception can be called good, since our hypothetical agent with good desires would do it. Even if the exception is something like a murder.<br /><br />I believe the problem here is in forgetting how one determines if a desire is good. &quot;That which people generally have many and strong reasons to promote.&quot; People generally do not have many and strong reasons to promote desires with odd and/or arbitrary exceptions thrown in. Therefore desires like that aren&#39;t actually good, and a hypothetical good agent would not have them.<br /><br />In my understanding, of course. :)Eneasznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-15951265474879895342009-07-27T19:06:51.810-06:002009-07-27T19:06:51.810-06:00Interestingly, The Muslim religion sees this attri...Interestingly, The Muslim religion sees this attribution of ones actions and desires to God as their one unforgivable sin, &quot;shirk&quot;. That is why devout Muslims qualify even mundane statements of desires with &quot;God willing&quot; and &quot;God be praised&quot; when their desires are fortunate enough be fulfilled. A devout Muslim can only hope that God supports their desires, but should never assume that what they are doing is God&#39;s will and desire, lest they blaspheme in the highest order.<br /><br />I am surprised that Christianity does not have a similar policy- too often I have observed Christians taking credit for their good fortune- that somehow something they have done has curried favor with God. But this is wrong and should be taken as an offense to other Christians. Because, for example, I am sure numerous good Christians died on September 11th, despite their prayers. Also, plenty of devout Christian mothers have prayed nonstop at the bed of their critically ill child to no avail. In my own community, a good preacher, citizen, and father of eight, was murdered in a chance encounter by a wayward teen on a nightly walk. According to the report, he was told to kneel down and pray before he was shot in the head.<br /><br />I am aghast that so many of them do not see how wicked it is, even amongst other Christians, to assume that they have earned their good fortune or that it is a sign that God favors them.Mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-8197029523009878062009-07-27T17:58:53.098-06:002009-07-27T17:58:53.098-06:00Hello Doug. I believe this has already been addre...Hello Doug. I believe this has already been addressed. The short version is that no one has only one desire, and that sometimes different desires will come into conflict. When a desire to be truthful comes into conflict with a desire to prevent death (ie: don&#39;t tell Nazi Steve about the Jews in your attic), the desire to prevent death should be stronger and win out. In less clear-cut cases (say, you must kill a child to prevent the detonation of a nuclear bomb) the desire to save lives should outweigh the desire to not kill a child, but in a good person this conflict of two such strong desires will produce emotional trauma that can haunt them for the rest of their life. This more accurately explains real-life situations than narrowing down desires into exception-laden codexs that say things like &quot;I should have an aversion to killing a child, except for when it will prevent a nuke from detonating, or that child will grow up to be hitler, or etc etc etc&quot;<br /><br />The long version can be <a href="http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2006/12/survival-vs-property-part-deux.html" rel="nofollow">found here</a> and <a href="http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2006/06/killing-innocent-child.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>Eneaszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500232958398471146noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-78366040797349253382009-07-27T12:22:57.623-06:002009-07-27T12:22:57.623-06:00Off topic:
I think I&#39;ve found a loophole in &...Off topic:<br /><br />I think I&#39;ve found a loophole in &quot;right acts are those which an agent with good desires would do.&quot;<br /><br />Take any desire that is &quot;in general&quot; desire-fulfilling. For example, the desire to be truthful to others. Now, add in a weird, specific exception that almost never comes up. Thus, &quot;be truthful to others&quot; becomes &quot;be truthful to others, except at midnight on 9/12/2013 to guys named Steve with red hair who live in Detroit.&quot; Now, because the exception is extremely rare, this desire is still generally desire fulfilling, because most of the time, you&#39;re not talking to a guy named Steve with red hair who lives in Detroit at midnight on 9/12/2013. That means that an agent with this desire is still an agent with good desires. So lying to Steve at midnight on 9/12/2013 is a right act. <br /><br />If we make our exceptions narrow enough, given almost any act, we can construct an agent whose desires are good in general, yet would still perform that act in that specific situation. (Even if desires with extremely narrow exceptions are not psychologically realistic for humans, we can still imagine building a robot with those desires.) Therefore, almost all acts are right acts.<br /><br />What&#39;s wrong with this picture?Doug S.noreply@blogger.com